Class Review: Judy Blume – Y.A. Writing

Judy Blume teaches writing (Master Class) is an excellent class. I took it the first time in 2018, as part of my learning process for the mystery novel that I’ve been working on.

A few Highlights or take aways from the class.

• Authors are a little different because they have and create their stories, but that’s ok. It’s ok to be different.
• Fiction authors write about their experiences, but in a creative way.
• Fiction authors work their fear into their stories, making the story feel more real.
• Ideas can come from anywhere, and write them down.
• Adressing real life, secrets and adults being real people in books for children.
•   Themes are not required to write for children.
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• … in progres ….

In Nov of 2019, I’ve been rewatching it, as I write my first children’s book about my dog (Nala the PitBull) and her many adventures. Nala was my 18-year-old Pit Bull and she spent most of her life with us, we adopted her when she was about a 1.5 ys old. The gentleman we adopted her from had been through a rough year, he had been laid off from his job, his fiancee had broken up with him and moved on, he had lost his home, all in a few months. When we met him he was living in a storage unit, struggling to take care of himself and his two dogs. We were only able to responsible adopt one dog since we had already had one dog (Nini, Bull Mastiff – Akita cross). So we adopted this goof adorable loveable sweet girl Nala. After 17 years together and many adventures, Nala passed away in my arms at the beginning of Oct, seizures and a brain tumor robbing her of life. As I process that grief, I’ve decided to turn all the wonderful adventures she had into short stories, and possibly illustrated books or animated digital books.

There’s a newsletter link at the bottom of the page that you can sign up for if you would like to receive updates on Nala’s books or the mystery novel. It is a separate mailing list from the game development list.